I suport the release of Julian Assange to Equador as he is clearly a politcal prisoner.

As much as I love my country, I hate what they do contrary to the original belief of what I thougt this country believe and was the law.

I don't believe America is a Democracy any more in light of what is happening to dictators, and now that of whisle blowers Like Manning and now Julian Assange who is a journalist who report it; now stands as a crimminal in the eyes of USA and England diplomats.

If my country has done wrong to others, I would like to know about it. This is my country as well as theirs and I'm sick and tired of all of the Hypocracy going on all over the darn place.

If they persecute journalist, then, who's next. Also, are we living in a society where you absolutely don't have the freedom of speech. If so, than people should protest and stop giving any information on the internet, stop being friends, stop writing letters and develop another way of communication, because the one you have now will get you killed as fast as you blink an eye.

If we don't make a stand now, then who's going to stand up for you when it's your turn.

For some reason, I feel like a prisoner of many spectrums. There is no place to go right now to speak to what you really feel; and unless you know for sure who you're speaking to, you best not speak at all. Listening more can determine if you should speak. Sooner or later, the truth will come out.

I am sure Julian Assange will be OK because there are many people who are in support of him and they are people who are like me, who questions, see, and react.

Nothing in this country is going to be the same anymore because the people have waken up.

We all need to be responsible for our own well-being, because the powers are for the bottom line; and that is money.

I feel bad for Obama because he is caught in the middle of the old way of thinking and running the country and that of what the country should have been about for over 400 years.

The waste of our tax dollars is unbelievable. The laws are so stringent, that even if you wanted to get up from the bottom pit, a law will come to tell you, you can't do it.

Other people from outside of the US know more about overcoming these laws, stick together, change their name, and do whatever it takes to survive because they know how to play the game, while we as American just play along not knowing what is in plan for them. Many people have their heads in the ground like ostriches. Not even have a plan for their future.

We all should stand for something and start making plans today for your life and not wait for more uncertainty to come forth. There's always going to be that which should not stop you for thinking for yourself.

Again, I believe Julian Assange should be given his freedom to live his life and not be punished for exposing what we all should know.

My heart goes out to the USA soider Manning for exposing what he thought was the right thing to do. To me, he is a hero and somehow, the people will speak at the end at the polls and on the ground.

I believe in the humanity of all people and the USA needs to let these countries settle their own business. No country came to America and said you should set the slaves free, did they? Hell, no! At the end, all countries will all turn against America. And that's a sad thought!

"Money Can't Buy Love"

Thelma Harcum

This is all driven By the US, other European countries are pampering to the American authorities, Just think for one minute what the implications are for any British Embassy in the World, for that matter any Enbassy of any country in the world?

Hague is bluffing ,surely he wouldnt compromise the whole diplomatic protocol for the Whim of the US?

Democracy and freedom of speech are being oppressed.

The UK does not accept the principle of diplomatic asylum.

Quote UK Foreign Secretary William Hague: It does not change the fundamentals of the case. We will not allow Mr Assange safe passage out of the UK, nor is there any legal basis for us to do so. The UK does not accept the principle of diplomatic asylum. It is far from a universally accepted concept: the United Kingdom is not a party to any legal instruments which require us to recognise the grant of diplomatic asylum by a foreign embassy in this country. Moreover, it is well established that, even for those countries which do recognise diplomatic asylum, it should not be used for the purposes of escaping the regular processes of the courts. And in this case that is clearly what is happening.

I wonder how many people are considering an early retirement from the British Foreign Service considering this clear stand against asylum by their boss. For me, blanket diplomatic immunity is shakier than asylum from persecution. AFAIK, there have been no charges filed against Mr. Assange and yet he can be extradited. Seems like the Blair-Bush-Cheney-Wolfowitz-etc cabal needs to be even more careful about where they travel.

Another important fact that gets forgetten in the case of Wikileaks is that Assange is the publisher of the leaked information and not the person who divulged the information. It seems clear that the pursuit of Assange is intended to do more than just chill the freedom of the press - it is meant to completely undermine the intent of the founders of US that the press should serve as a check on the exercise of power by our government.

Again, arrogant and hypocrite governments, like the US and UK, want the rest of the world to abide by internationally agreed to laws but will violate them whenever they feel like it. Then when others violate those international laws, as the US and UK has done, they say..."Oh, you can't do that...it is against international law!" What is silly and obvious to everyone but many Americans, it seems, is the US and UK are silly hypocrites and international criminals who preach one thing for everyone else but don't abide by the agreements themselves.

Just wait until some Americans are holed up in some US embassy in some foreign country and the foreign county wants to get at them. They will be able to invade that embassy, like they did in Iran, and take prisoners....and it will have nullified any stigma against the Iranians or against any future occurrence of invading an embassy. The US and UK are setting the examples by which the world will say..."Silly bastard hypocrites...how dare you pretend to be one thing and then do another and then expect everyone else to follow the rules."

If I was still doing a lot of traveling, I would have to worry that I would not be able to find safe refuge in an American Embassy in those countries...because the US and UK has created the precedent that the other countries don't have to abide by their agreements.

If the UK goes into that Ecuadorian Embassy by force then they are no better than a lawless mob like the Iranian students who took over the US embassy in Iran...and those students had a very good reason to do so after all of the underhanded manipulations and meddling the US did to destroy and subvert that country.

Obama is also guilty of leaking sensitive and classified information to the "enemy" and he and his regime want to crush Assange for this?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/politics/former-seals-obama/index.html

Thank you, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and the Ecuadorian government and people of Ecuador for sticking up for Julian Assange. And a big boo and hiss to the UK government... mere lap dogs and puppets to the criminals who run the US and the UK. Thank you for opposing the corrupt, bully boy countries who obviously are lying bastards when they brag about decency, fairness, openness, and democracy. These bully boy countries can't stand the light of truth when their murderous and greedy policies are made public. We need more people like Assange and Manning and all the other whistleblowers who have made public the criminal doings of corrupt governments.

We live in a different age. We no longer live miles apart, use hand load muskets, or ride horses for basic transportation. Yet somehow, although we openly accept the change to cars and need for laws to govern them, and don't complain that driving violates the constitution, we, the people, think the constitution guarantees our right to own Assault weapons capable of hundreds of rounds per minute. It is harder to get nicotine gum than to buy a nice little AR15, a couple of hundred round magazines, and the bullets to fill them.

We can perform "1984" type survellence, check Facebook, intercept all kinds of phone calls and internet traffic, but it seems to me that if we begin to stem the flow of assault weapons and bullets into the system,the problem may just start to become less.

Then there is the issue of mental health and the difficulty of getting help. Perhaps our new national heathcare policies will start to address this problem. For sure, the existing health insurance industry has done little to address the issue.

And finally, this Palindromedary commentariest (13 enteries) makes some really good points, but definitely needs a better outlet than Thom's blog page. He might consider doing an article or a book, and definitly drop the derogatory side references to the general respondents who don't happen to have his "superior mind." He might also take note that some of the most infamous criminal of our time have often started by writing long, rambling manifesto's.

Mr. Ware ----Thank you for a brilliant post!!!

I watched the RT CrossTalk program today about the use of Drones. And it was mentioned that 82% of Americans in a recent poll agrees with the use of Drones in the Middle East. It was also mentioned that one of the reasons why they might approve so highly is that, contrary to what they broadcast internationally (ie: the truth), the American media covers up and doctors the truth so that Americans do not know that the drones kill more civilians than the so-called "bad guys".

They also talked about how the US Military manipulates just who are "the bad guys" so that they minimize the collateral damage just by their saying so. The argument for the use of drones is to kill the "bad guys" so that they cannot kill our troops. But if we got our butts out of the Middle East, where they don't belong in the first place, then our troops would not be in danger. And not only that but contrary to what some argue...that "we have to kill them over there so they don't kill us over here"...is pure malarkey. In fact, our use of drones and murdering so many innocent civilians is making our country a lot less safe because we are really, really, ticking these people off and begging them to be "terrorists" to attack us in our country.

It's called blow back. And the military industrial complex loves stirring up these people and hopes that they do try to attack us because it works in their favor of ostensibly "protecting us from the bogeyman" in exchange for us giving up any ideas of freedom and liberty.

What if George Zimmerman....was walking down the street and saw someone in a hoody glare at him...so GZ pulls out a machine gun and kills everything in sight including all the women and children behind and to the sides, maybe even in front, of the hooded guy. He believed that the hooded guy was an enemy that might do damage to them some day. GZ says that most of these people killed were Al Qaida (oops, I mean aiders and abettors of the hooded guy...that they were all plotting again them and all deserved to die.). The few that might have actually been, indisputably, actual bystanders (innocent civilians) ...GZ would quip..."Oh, I am very sorry that I cause some collateral damage but it was all quite necessary to protect others!" And then the major news media all over the US reported on the heroic actions of GZ and didn't even mention all of the innocent bystanders that got killed.

The damn military and the damn politicians and the damn stupid Americans who support the use of drones by the military is no better than George Zimmerman. In fact, a million times worse.

The other thing was in the first few minutes of the Thom Hartman show..the host said that the reason why there was a shift in the 2010 elections was because of all of the massive outside spending to influence those elections.

That might have been part of it but another part might have been that so many Democrats were so ticked off at the lack of true Democrat representation by their elected Democrat officials that they just decided to throw them out. If they are not going to do the job we elected them for then we may as well just kick their butts out of office. They are no better than Republicans. Hear that Obama????!!!

I have heard of these smaller drones...some look like small helicopters...others look like model planes with cameras installed.

I certainly agree about Howard Zinn! He was great!

Huffington Post had an article about subjecting people who receive food stamps with the "implant" in their hands. The reason given was, "to stop misuse of the food stamp program", of course. I was surprised by the number of comments that agreed with the plan, "after all our cell phones can be tracked". My response was that while the technology is able to track people through the cell phone it is against our right to privacy, a cell phone can be thrown away (just watch the Bourne movies). To submit to an implanted chip in order to receive one of the basic needs for survival, food, not only would be an intrusion of one's privacy, it would be forced by the same government elected to protect its citizens welfare. And it is immoral in its intent because it will subject the poor as the class that depend upon food stamps for sustenance.

Our nation has a generation that has matured after 911 and the powers of Homeland Security, FEMA, a court system that regularly abuses the rights of its citizens, laws that further deny the principles of the Constitution. Add to these the militarization of our police forces, trained and armed with military grade weapons, which have created a wave of police brutality. Everywhere we have cameras and soon drones. The changes in how we are monitored, with police and government sanctions have become the new normal. While the older generation views the encroachment of privacy rights with concern; the younger ones view these changes as normal without knowing the dangers.

I generally don't listen when there's a guest host. Tom's been gone for like two weeks now? I hope he and Louise are ok!! Listeners like myself would appreciate some prominent note on the website explaining Tom's absence, to ease our concern. Thanks!!